


Path home

by Jileine



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 10:26:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13902087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jileine/pseuds/Jileine
Summary: What if Obi-Wan never picked Anakin's sword after their fateful duel?AU based on the new lore about the lightsaber crystals





	Path home

Familiar handle. Couple of scratches right next to emitter, steel mixed with black polymer covering, just to make grip easier. Familiar low throbbing sound upon activation.

Anakin Skywalker burned in Mustafar fires, yet his lightsaber carried on. It didn’t care about the name of the dark creature underneath the obsidian armor. 

Betrayed by his master. His apprentice. His best friend. Even his wife. Yet lightsaber remained loyal to his chosen one, in happiness and adversity. And even death couldn’t separate them.

Darth Vader pressed again on the activation switch, turning it off. New lightsaber was hanging from his belt, red and bleeding in agony, as befitting a Sith lord. A glorious path of battle and carnage awaited it. 

A sword of a dead Jedi would be forgotten in the darkest hole of his new castle on Mustafar. Buried, along with its master.

Because Anakin Skywalker was dead. Wasn’t he?

* * *

Alarm was blaring in the stifling air. Vader awakened from his meditation in the bacta tank.

“Leave the trespasser, I shall deal with him myself.” He commanded the Red Guards, already reading their pikes. Just who would be daring enough to crawl into the castle basement? And how that someone could land on the planet and pass the first line of defense completely unnoticed?

The closer Vader came to the lower levels, the more and more he could feel a strangely familiar presence. The last time he felt anything similar was the battle of Yavin. So, the pilot who destroyed the Death Star now decided to rob the Dark Lord himself – now, that took some nerve!

To his great surprise, trespasser passed the repository of the Sith holocrons and priceless artifacts. He wasn’t even interested in the archives and Imperial databanks. No, his would-be-thief came all the way down to the small storage room that contained old things left from Anakin Skywalker. Vader didn’t even remember why he kept all that trash, much less why would somebody risk so much to get to it.

This trespasser was just a boy, small and scrawny, watching the red lights of the alarm with enormous frightened eyes. Upon sighting Vader, he screeched in fury and quickly grabbed a lightsaber from an open casket – just when did he have time to sift through Skywalker’s stuff? With fanatical zeal boy rushed at him with lightsaber held in awkward grip.

Vader simply side-stepped this clumsy attack and grabbed his hand. Thin bones snapped under the titanium fingers and wanna-be-Jedi had to let go of the hilt with a pitiful whimper. Reflexively, Vader snatched the falling lightsaber out of air.

A tiny child, no older than three, with sandy blond hair and light eyes, giving him a flower crown with Padme laughing in the background. Same child, now a bit older, sitting behind the speeder controls while he patiently explained the functions of the buttons and switches. A teenager in the uniform of the Coruscant Academy, telling some joke.

And broken, smoking body beneath Palpatine’s throne. A pleading, painful expression on the young face.

His child perished with Padme nineteen years ago. Why did the boy from these visions had a face of the trespasser?

What could Anakin’s crystal want from him now?

“Why did you come to the castle? Why steal Skywalker’s saber?” boomed Vader, picking the trespasser by his neck and shaking him. He filled the Force with terror and dread just to add the mental pressure, though he doubted he would need much.

“Father’s… saber… called me…” The boy rasped, rapidly losing color due to the lack of oxygen. Startled, Vader relaxed his grip. Father’s? Called?

He couldn’t feel any deception from the terrified youth, but it didn’t make any sense.

“What is your name?” he asked cautiously, letting go of the boy’s neck. Dark bruises have already started forming on the pale skin. With great reluctance and no small amount of terror and suspicion, the boy answered:

“Luke Skywalker.”

Obsidian castle shook to its foundations. Staggered, Vader looked at the youth currently crouched on the cold floor in the futile attempts to catch his breath. That… wasn’t true. It was impossible! His child dies along with Padme when Vader killed her in a fit of rage. There was no way he could have survived!

And yet a proof of opposite was looking at him with huge expressive eyes full of despair – and damning, obstinate righteous fury.

Padme Amidala wasn’t afraid of death and was ready to fight much more superior force for what she believed was right while looking at her adversaries with the same eyes.

The crystal in his hand pulsed in tact with his heartbeat. But why? Nothing has remained from Anakin Skywalker!

Nothing, except for his son.

No. The boy was lying. The Force somehow was tricking him. It was an only possible explanation.

Vader raised his hand, sending the boy to sleep. Foolish youth was stubborn to the end, clinging to the edges of consciousness, yet in the end finally succumbed and fell to the floor. Vader bowed to pick up the child. Sure, there was a medical wind in the castle, yet on the off-chance he might have told the truth…

The Red Guards have always been more devoted to the Emperor rather than him. No matter. Mustafar had several hidden laboratories.

The boy laid unconscious on the operation table while the meddroids slowly repositioned the bones in the broken wrist and covered his neck with bacta patches. Vader stared at the screen on the DNA analyzer with disbelieving eyes.

Yet it was true. The Force could never lie to him. A son. He and Padme had a son. A son that survived, and lived, and shone in the Force brighter than a supernova.

Luke. His name was Luke Skywalker. And Vader could have had killed him back then, near Yavin, without ever realizing that he was severing the last connection to his beloved Padme.

Suddenly terrified, he looked at the operation table, but the monitor indicated normal, even pulse, boy’s chest continued to rise and fall in tact with deep breaths. He was asleep. Simply asleep. Nothing more serious than a couple of bruises and a broken wrist.

Vader fiddled with controls of the life-support suit, switching the head monitors to better color perception. Upon a minute hesitation, he also tagged off one of the gloves. His prosthetics had pressure and temperature sensors with signal usually muted by the thick black leather, yet now he wished for each and every sensation. And cursed the fate that prevented him from ever touching his son with a real hand.

Cheek under his fingers was soft, smooth, warm… alive. Luke wasn’t a ghost or another Force vision plaguing him in the dead of the night. Vader slowly traced his jaw, tucked a stray lock of pale hair. Its tone was lighter than Anakin’s was, but might have yet darkened with age. What color were his eyes again? His features were also softer, gentler, more like Padme – oh, wait, he remembered that dimple, Anakin used to have one.

Once again, he looked at the boy. Short – probably inherited that from Naberrie, he remembered staying with Padme’s family once, and how short Ruwee Naberrie seemed when standing next to Anakin. Slender fingers – not even slender, straight up thin, with bones almost visible under the skin – did he get enough food with the Rebels? They were always short on supplies. Vader ordered the droid to start full diagnostics and inject another dose of sedative just in case. He didn’t know yet what to do with newly discovered son. Luke was completely untrained, he could tell that much, but potential…

He didn’t even have to look at the midichlorian count to tell just how strong his son would be, but he couldn’t resist the temptation. Not that it mattered, the count was so far off the charts – more than twenty thousand.

Luke could become stronger than himself. Stronger than Sidious. Stronger than any forceuser in the galaxy, past and present. Together, they could overthrow the Emperor and bring peace to the galaxy.

And he wouldn’t be so alone anymore.

His hand caught on something on the belt. Looked like he unconsciously attached Skywalker’s lightsaber right next to his own. The crystal. It was the crystal that called out to Luke, light years away from Mustafar, with a plea to come to his father’s side. Without the crystal… would he ever know about his child’s existence?

“What do you want?” Vader said slowly, referring to the saber in his hand. It was beyond foolish, of course, yet the crystal answered – not with words, but with an… image? Sensation?

Home. Family. Love.

Light.

“He is MY son. And Jedi are forbidden any attachments.” Vader said irritably, very conveniently forgetting that the same could be said about the Sith.

Infil’a’s crystal, so long ago tainted and bled by Vader’s own pain, resisted him till the very end, nearly driving him mad with tantalizing visions, exploiting every weakness, every chink in the armor surrounding his dead and shriveled soul. Anakin Skywalker’s saber answered with only slight regret and gentle rebuke. This, more than anything, stopped Vader in his tracks and made him reconsider the blade in his hand.

Luke followed the crystal’s call from across the galaxy. And he would need a training saber anyway. Maybe, one day he would even make the crystal submit to him, bleeding it with his newfound power until the blue blade turned to crimson.

Yes. It would be proper. Anakin Skywalker died so that Darth Vader could rise from his ashes, and so would Anakin’s blade die to give life to his son’s trusted weapon.

But he had to wake the boy up first. Learn how much he knew already, how much Kenobi and those accursed Rebels have managed to poison him with their lies.

He easily picked the boy up and carried him to the room next door, to lay on the low sofa. One touch of the Force was enough to return him to consciousness. Light lashes wavered slightly, yet his eyes remained stubbornly closed. Vader could feel in the Force his confusion, could catch an onslaught of the recent memories passing by, and subsequent panic. Catching onto the quietly held breath, he understood that Luke finally heard the rasp of the respirator.

“I know that you can hear me.” He said finally, not wanting to startle the boy, yet growing steadily impatient with this game of dead possum. His son opened his eyes and immediately turned to him, crouching into a tight ball as far as he could from the Sith Lord. That… stung.

His own son was afraid of him.

Granted, he did break the child’s arm and nearly strangled him.

Several seconds passed. Luke continued looking at him with wide eyes, blue and clear like the water of the Naboo lakes. Just like his vision. Eyes filled with desperate determination.

“I’m not going to torture or kill you.” Vader decided to calm him down, yet it seemed to backfire almost immediately, as the boy sneered at him with hatred and fear.

“I’m not telling you anything!” Luke rasped. His trachea probably still needed treatment, even despite the bacta patch.

“I’m not interested in the Rebellion’s paltry secrets either” Vader replied indifferently. He could ask about the Rebel’s base afterwards, when his son was firmly devoted to his cause. “You came here for your father’s blade. But what exactly do you know about Anakin Skywalker?”

Boy’s grimace was full of fury, yet he remained stubbornly silent. Underneath the mask, Vader furrowed his brows. This disobedience should have been punished, and yet he didn’t want to provoke his son before establishing even a slightest bond. But maybe he could try a different tactic.

He made a show of weighing Skywalker’s saber with his hand.

“If you answer this question, it’s yours.”

Luke’s eyes widened, gaze drifting from the saber’s hilt to the lenses of Vader’s mask, likely judging his sincerity. Licking his dried lips, boy said hesitantly:

“He was a pilot, Jedi, and a hero. And you betrayed and murdered him.”

Vader stood rooted to the spot, dumbfounded by the sheer absurdity of this claim. Obi-Wan… just how did he dare! Such blatant, arrogant lie!

Lights around them started blinking and walls shook slightly. Luke slowly edged even further away, watching him with wary eyes. It seemed in his anger he lost control over the mental shields for a second, letting the Darkness in his soul take a momentary control. With a great effort, Vader stopped the rising tide of the Force Rage and leashed the Dark Side once again.

“I didn’t kill your father. I AM your father.” He finally murmured. Luke shook his head in daze.

“No. It’s not true. It’s impossible!” He said, going from near whisper to full-blown scream. It was strange how his words echoed Vader’s thoughts just mere hours ago.

“Search your feelings, you know it to be true” Sith answered calmly, mentally willing himself to not be so upset at the boy’s obvious distress. “Or, if you prefer, we could run a DNA test again.”

“Lies, lies, lies…” Luke murmured without paying any attention to him. Boy’s eyes were suspiciously glistening. Vader felt helpless, people’s tears and desperate pleading hadn’t had any effect on him for a long, long while, but when it came to his own child…

“Why didn’t Ben tell me?” his son cried pitifully. Ben? Did he mean Obi-Wan?

“Kenobi mutilated me and left to burn to death, and then stole you to raise as his weapon” Vader replied to him with as much derision as his vocoder allowed in the mechanical voice. Luke just looked at him in complete shock, startled by the honest brutality of this declaration.

“The Jedi and the Sith have always been enemies. He wanted you to kill your father.” Vader continued, feeling the embers of his hatred towards Obi-Wan, quenched after the duel on Death Star, rising anew into a full-blown fire at the sight of pain and betrayal in his son’s eyes.

“He… he couldn’t. It must have been some mistake…” Luke whispered shakily, yet even now the tremor in his voice suggested that he couldn’t find it in himself to continue to defend the old Jedi.

Vader oh so carefully approached the boy, making sure to telegraph his every movement and seem as unthreatening as possible. Luke flinched slightly when a leather-clad hand lowered on his shoulder, yet made no move to dislodge it. A single tear rolled down his cheek. His son was obviously in shock, still reeling from the revelation of their newfound relationship. To tell the truth, Vader himself was shaken and feeling completely at loss. That might have been the only reason why he did what he did.

Moving just as slowly and carefully, he raised another hand and gently wiped the tear from a smooth cheek. 

“I won’t let anyone cause you pain anymore, child of mine.” He said with utter conviction. Luke hasn’t answered, yet he could feel his forlorn acceptance.

His melancholy would pass. No one, never would take his greatest treasure away from him. No one would cause Luke any more pain.

Except for himself. 

* * *

Luke’s fingers closed around the saber’s hilt. Crystal inside it answered with barely noticeable pulsation. Little human wasn’t his master, but the closer this child was to his chosen one, the brighter a tiny, flickering light in the Sith’s soul became.

The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars.


End file.
